


A dealer of men

by noisette



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Coercion, Dom/sub Undertones, Dubious Consent, M/M, Oral Sex, Religious Content, Ritual Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 04:08:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noisette/pseuds/noisette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://vikingskink.livejournal.com/444.html">kink prompt!</a> Athelstan is left alone at the farm. Floki pays a visit and they have what passes for a conversation when Floki is involved. Floki shows Athelstan the many ways there are to worship the gods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A dealer of men

They told him what to do, if men came to the farm while they were gone. They told him together and then apart, each coming to him with advice on how best to keep himself safe from unwanted advances. Lagertha's admonitions had softened a little now that her children were no longer to be left alone with him. ("You fight with your teeth if you have to. Your selfish God won't save you from swords.") Ragnar's came from a place of ownership. "You tell them I said no," he insisted, his hand clasped behind Athelstan's neck. "You run." 

"But what of the farm?" Athelstan had asked. 

"Damn the farm." Ragnar's eyes shone like stars shooting across the night sky. "You _run_." 

They left with the first light of dawn and Athelstan spent a long time listening as their voices faded into the rustling of tree branches. No sorrow bloomed to see them go. He had work enough to keep him from feeling lonesome. The pigs had to be fed, more wood chopped for the winter stores, several wicker baskets mended; Lagertha had left her sewing shears behind so he could finish stitching up the patched cloak she'd gifted him earlier in the spring. 

Athelstan worked late into the day, stopping only to drink or break pieces of stale bread to chew while he worked. He wasn't starved. Ragnar and his family let him eat at their table and though they served themselves first, they left Athelstan his fair share. "A weak slave is of no use to me," Ragnar had told him, noting his surprise with the same amused smile he seemed to take in all else. All the same, in their absence Athelstan found himself unwilling to delve into the pantry. Lagertha hadn't struck him since he'd been brought into her home, but Athelstan had seen her with her husband; they fought as loudly as they made love. He dreaded her displeasure.

For supper, he boiled himself an egg fresh from the henhouse and lathered a fistful of hard bread with grease. His palms stung, body stiff and aching with work, yet inexplicably he felt at peace. The night was beautiful, hardly any wind on the water. He spared a thought for Ragnar and his family: not a prayer, nothing so formal. He found himself hoping they had reached Kattegat unmolested. 

He went outside. There was no one to stop him shedding his robe, nor to stand idly by and watch with a knowing smirk as Athelstan slipped into the icy waters. It was his first bath in a week and though his skin prickled with goose bumps, he welcomed the cool caress of the fjord. He swam away from the shore, kicking his legs to dispel the creeping numbness and ducked his head under the surface. 

The moon shone bright enough that he could see the smooth stones beneath his feet, the glossy sand stirred as though by an invisible hand. There might have been fish, but his kicking scared them all away. 

He resurfaced. Above him, the inverted cauldron of a pitch dark sky seemed flecked with gold. 

"Only a fool Briton would swim in this chill," called a voice from the shore. 

Athelstan jerked at the sound, nearly swallowed water. He craned his neck the better to see the speaker but could not recognize him. His heart leapt into his throat. "My master will be back soon."

"Your master is gone to town," said the man. "Come dry yourself before your little prick falls off." 

The offer was made with a crooking finger. Athelstan recalled Ragnar's warning, thought of swimming to safety, but his body was already growing sluggish, the cold leaching away his strength. He shivered as he came out of the water. The soft lapping waves pulled at his thighs and ankles, like hands unwilling to turn him loose. 

He marked the man's crouch at the water's edge; he could not be avoided, since he'd hooked a fist in Athelstan's robe and was holding it out for him to take. "Hmm," he drawled as he cocked his head, "perhaps not so _little_."

Athelstan wrapped the robe around his midriff, shaking with the cold. "Ragnar--"

"I have not come to seek Ragnar." That shut Athelstan up sure as a slap. "Or his shieldmaiden. Or their brood." 

"Who are you?" It surprised Athelstan to discover he could still speak, albeit through chattering teeth. "What do you want?" 

The man rose slowly and Athelstan discovered him to be a head taller, but thinner than Ragnar and somewhat gangly, with limbs that seemed too long for his body. "I am Floki," he said, suddenly imperious, "I have come to learn about your one god." His gaze swept over Athelstan slowly, as if taking stock of his construction. "--and to teach you about our ways." 

Memory provided a better answer. _I remember you,_ thought Athelstan. _From the monastery._ "I cannot let you into the house," he insisted, toes curling into the sandy shore. 

"And I cannot let you stand out here to catch cold." Floki grinned. Athelstan could not say if he shivered because the man's teeth were so long and sharp, or because he was half-naked on a crisp autumn's night. "It seems we are at an impasse."

Ragnar had explained that a slave was not permitted to fight a free man -- hence the wisdom of running if attacked rather than seeking to defend oneself. Lagertha had called it a law made by stupid men for stupid men. She'd told him he was strong and gripped his bicep with her calloused fingers. "See? You're no longer the soft little monk my husband tied to a tree." 

But Athelstan was no warrior. He did not think to reach for one of the rocks on the lakeside or throw mud in Floki's dark-rimmed eyes. He bowed his head. He said "we will go inside." The path of minimal resistance had kept him alive this long.

Floki made a beeline for the hearth. "It is a frigid fucking night, monk. What possessed you to venture outside?"

"Athelstan," he answered absently. 

"Is that some British slur?"

He smiled, despite himself and said, "No, it is my name." His scratchy robe was set aside for the linen shift he wore beneath it. Both would need a good scrubbing, perhaps in the morning. If he lived that long. Athelstan pushed the thought aside and made his way out from beyond the partition that separated his pallet from the rest of the house. Lagertha had said she did not care to have him underfoot, but Athelstan sometimes wondered if she hadn't done it out of some strange kindness. This way he could no longer see or hear his masters' sighs and growls in the dead of night. He could sleep. 

"Will you take tea?" There was ale, too, but Athelstan saw nothing good come of hosting a stranger in his cups. 

"I will take a story," Floki said. He cocked his head like an owl, eyes round and very dark, even in the firelight. 

Athelstan found himself swallowing hard. "What story is that?"

Floki rolled one bony shoulder. "Your dead god. What was his crime? Why do you worship such a weakling?"

"I. He is not weak," Athelstan heard himself say. "If I had a year it would not be enough to teach you His glory."

Lips peeling back into a smile, Floki read a joke in that rather than the insult that had been intended. "You do not have a year, so you best start talking."

Athelstan wanted to refuse, to say the barbarians of the North did not _deserve_ to hear of His life, His majesty. Not a very Christian thought, but then Ragnar had asked about monastery life the better to know how to attack English shores. Athelstan didn't think Floki intended to wage similar battle against the heavens, but one could never be sure. These Northmen were not as simple as animals, though they behaved like them. 

Resigned to his fate, Athelstan started by telling Floki of Creation and the first man. He spoke of the Ark -- a story of particular interest to a shipwright -- and of Moses. He stood to brew the strong, bitter tea Ragnar favored before pursuing with the New Testament. 

The resurrection interested Floki much more than the rest. 

When Athelstan's answers proved slow, Floki fixed him with a dark-rimmed glare. "Why do you grin? Do I amuse you, monk?"

"At the monastery, such questions would have earned you the strap and no supper." Athelstan shook his head. 

"You do not answer my question," said Floki and for the first time since Athelstan had sat down with their tea, he found the Northman close enough to touch. "Do I amuse you, monk?"

Athelstan felt his cheeks heat. It was the late hour, no doubt. The thought of home and familiar things. "You said you would tell me about your gods." Pagan monstrosities, he thought, but better to have Floki's business finished and send him on his way than let those painted eyes follow him around the room like a predator stalking prey. 

"What do you know of Odin?" Floki asked, but moved no further from Athelstan's side. 

Ragnar had mentioned him once or twice, when speaking of knowledge, when raving about the jarl and his small-minded hoard. Athelstan shook his head. "Very little."

Floki smiled. "Then let me enlighten you." Odin, he said, was the creator, the all-father. His many wives and many children formed the kingdom of Asgard, where all warriors would someday ascend. "Your master loves him dearly."

"And you do not?" Athelstan wondered. 

"I esteem every god in part, and worship all equally poorly. There is one I like. Do you know of Loki?"

Athelstan shook his head. "Is that not your name?"

"No." Floki grinned. "But it is close." He walked his fingers over the flames without touching the crackling logs in the hearth. "You see, Loki is a changeling... a giant and a god and a man, if it pleases him to be... When Odin gives victory to the faint-hearted, it is Loki who speaks for the brave..." Athelstan found himself bending closer to hear the whisper Floki's words. "He comes as a man, as a fish or a mare... even as a crone."

"A crone?" Athelstan choked. "But why--"

"To counsel and make merry." Floki's fingers traced the rim of his goblet, before liberating it from his fist. Athelstan reminded himself that it wasn't his. He had no possessions; everything in this house belonged to Ragnar. "Do you find surprising that a god should wish to take womanly form?"

Athelstan thought of Eve and the Virgin and he thought of Lagertha when she bathed by the hearth, her golden hair curling around her breasts. "No," he said. "I don't."

"He's borne many children," Floki went on. "The eight-legged horse Sleipnir which Odin rides into battle. A wolf, Fenrir, a serpent and the goddess Hel."

"He bore children?" Athelstan heard the crack in his own voice. There was blasphemy and then there was perversion couched in creed. This seemed to be the latter. "But how--"

Floki laughed, ostensibly enjoying his discomfort. "Changeling, remember?" Athelstan did. "He also bore human children, many of whom still walk the earth today." 

"You cannot believe that," Athelstan said. 

"You believe a snake told a woman not to eat an apple." Floki's eyes narrowed. "Why are my tales so far-fetched?"

Athelstan gestured, unable at first to find his words. "The Bible--" His was propped on a rickety table near the hearth. He had hoped to read a little before bed, to seek perhaps the comfort of old, familiar words.

"Ah," Floki scoffed. "I have seen this Bible of yours." He plucked the book from the table without ceremony or reverence. "There were more where we found you."

"Yes--"

"They caught flame like all other kindling." And with a lackadaisical hand, Floki directed this holy book into the flames like all its siblings. 

It happened quickly.

Athelstan lunged before he could think the better of it, knocking into the shipwright and sending them both crashing to the floor. Floki's head smacked the floor with a dull noise. It wasn't until Athelstan scrabbled to pry the Bible from his hands that he discovered it hadn't even been touched by the flames. 

Floki laughed. "You have spirit. Ragnar chose well."

Panic still thrumming in his veins, Athelstan did not notice the hand that hooked into his shift until it was too late. He was being reeled in before he could resist. Floki's mouth caught his in a sharp-toothed kiss. Athelstan did fight, then, Bible tumbling to the floor as he tried to pry Floki's fingers loose. He jerked so hard the fabric tore, but it was no use. Floki had him by the back of the neck. He licked into his mouth without shame or restraint. 

Athelstan inhaled deeply when at last he was released, his lungs burning. 

"Be still," said the shipwright, his eyes gleaming like the smooth stones at the bottom of the fjord. "No harm will come to you."

"--if I do not fight?" Athelstan finished warily. He remembered Ragnar's warning and Lagertha's fingers digging into the meat of his arm, yet he couldn't seem to disentangle himself from Floki's hold.

"Is that what Ragnar tells you?" For such a thin scarecrow of man, Floki's grip proved hard to shift. "Shh," he cooed. "I do not take what isn't freely offered."

"This isn't--" A guilty shiver swallowed the lie before it could be spoken. Athelstan felt his cheeks heat. His shift had hitched up when he had attacked Floki and though there was still a palm of space still between their bodies, he could feel Floki stiffen against his thigh. No wonder: violence excited these Northmen. It was true enough of Ragnar and his wife. 

Floki's fingers combed through his hair. "Ragnar tells me your people worship on their knees. Your God demands piety?"

Every word that spilled from that wicked tongue was poison, but Athelstan couldn't stopper his ears against the steady thrum of speech, nor pretend he did not feel Floki's thumb stroke against the base of his spine. That hand had traveled a little, from Athelstan's ribcage to his tailbone. He steeled himself against it dipping even lower, shame welling in his throat, but it didn't. 

Floki, he realized, was telling him about communing with his gods through the joining of bodies.

"My God does not allow that," Athelstan said stubbornly and pretended he did not shift his knee a little to brush against the underside of Floki's cock. 

"Then your God is as selfish as ours. Why would deny yourself comfort on a cold night?" Floki traced his cheek. "I can feel you trembling, little lamb."

_I'm not a lamb_ , Athelstan almost hissed. "I am not cold," he said, instead, and ducked his head to hide the flush he could feel warming his face. When Floki tilted up his chin this time, he did not resist. He was too tired to fight and his willfulness had been spent on protecting the Holy Book from Floki's careless meddling. It did not seem like such a poor trade, to bargain flesh for the Word of God. He could almost make-believe his wantonness was forgivable.

Floki rolled them over, spilling Athelstan onto the fur laid close to the fire, and pushed up his shift. "Some priests take wives," he murmured almost absently. "Some we have seen with their members cut... But you," Floki's fist closed around Athelstan's prick, "you're whole and yet untouched. How did the other monks stop themselves?"

"It's. It isn't done." Athelstan replied over the roar of blood pounding against his eardrums. He couldn't stop looking at Floki's hand on his member, coaxing him to hardness. It had happened before, as he was growing up; Brother Thomas had caught him with his shame one morning and taken the switch to the backs of his thighs. He'd had Athelstan rub himself as he was thrashed, the better to remember the agony and never to do it again. The lesson had stuck. 

"Oh," Floki laughed, "it is done, monk. And do you know what else?" Without waiting for an answer, he bowed his head and licked a clean stripe over the length of Athelstan's prick, from base to tip. 

He gushed, hips bucking up despite himself. The slick cavern of Floki's mouth opened to him and Athelstan watched with mild disbelief as his cock was swallowed whole, ink-painted lips closing tight around his member. How Floki went about keeping his teeth out of the way Athelstan did not know and, in that moment, could not bring himself to care. His eyes screwed shut, fists knotting in the other man's sleeve's for want of anchor. (Had he been Ragnar, Athelstan would have gripped his bronze hair. Had he been Ragnar, Athelstan would have felt the brush of coarse beard against his thighs -- a thought that should not have made him moan so loudly.)

He could feel something building as Floki licked and suckled him, like the fire in the hearth had set alight his own body. He remembered the logjam of pleasure from that single, awful time at the monastery. His thighs shook as he tried to suppress it, heels pushing into the floor to little use. 

It was Floki -- who had seduced him like the devil into giving up this much -- who came to his aid, his fist tightening at the base of Athelstan's prick. "Still think this is a sin, monk?"

"Stop," Athelstan said, licking his dry lips. "Stop calling me that." 

" _Athelstan._ " Floki crawled up the length of his body without releasing his grip. He reminded Athelstan of wolves in the forest, or some mythical monster creeping towards its prey. He was too far gone for fear. When Floki said "open your mouth," he did it without question, lips parting for the shipwright's thick fingers. He somehow knew to close his mouth around them, tongue flicking against the calloused underside. He worried only briefly that Floki might mean to choke him. (If he'd wanted to cause him pain and humiliation, he need not have indulged him in conversation first.) "Fold your lips over your teeth," Floki advised. "Suck in your cheeks. Yes, that's it..." His thumb stroked at the short, untrimmed hair on Athelstan's chin. "You'll do nicely."

_Do nicely for what?_ he wanted to ask, but his mouth was otherwise engaged. He let his eyes close after a while, part of him still so eager for release he couldn't ignore the pressure of Floki's hand around his cock. But the Northman did not release him and the sense of urgency abated after a while. He moaned when Floki's fingers slipped from his mouth, instantly forlorn. 

Floki kissed his lips almost chastely.

"What," Athelstan croaked. "What are you doing to me?" He felt exposed and warm where before he'd been trembling. He blinked his eyes open to discover that Loki was slowly, unhurriedly peeling off his clothes. There were marks on his body: like scars, but shaped too carefully not to be deliberate. Athelstan felt breaths stutter out of his throat when he caught sight of an inked cross on Floki's abdomen, long and thin and disappearing into the thick auburn hair. He swallowed his objections. 

He tried not to resist when Floki took his hand. Fear gripped him by the throat, but it was fear of the unknown more than man. Floki's gaze on him was a source of heat in its own right. 

His fingers were pulled to Floki's wide, crooked lips, a kiss bestowed to center of Athelstan's palm. He would have shivered were it not for the hearth giving off its gentle warmth. "I told you," Floki said slowly, "I am teaching you about my gods... and how to worship them."

"This is how you worship?" Athelstan breathed. He couldn't look away from the path his hand in Floki's seemed to draw over a scarred pectoral, the leisurely journey of fingers mapping out the slats of his ribs. 

"Like this," Floki echoed, "and like this." He directed Athelstan's hand to his cock almost tenderly, placed himself in Athelstan's fist and let him close the fingers tight. A moan spilled from his throat, muscles cording tight. 

It was the first cock Athelstan had touched that wasn't his own. He had seen Ragnar's -- it was impossible to avoid when he and Lagertha fornicated without a scrap of decency -- and knew that his was thicker, than it curved slightly to the left. Would it feel as warm as Floki's in his hand? How would it taste?

Later, Athelstan would wonder if it was Floki's fingers in his mouth that put the idea into his head, or if the touch of lips to his own cock poured oil onto his fire. Whatever the reason, he found himself sitting up and carefully inching forward, half wary of being rebuffed. Floki stroked a hand into his hair; it wasn't an attempt to urge him along. At least, it didn't feel like one.

The first touch of his lips to the mushroomed head was tentative, a barely-there caress. Floki chuckled warm as the logs crackled in the hearth. "You can do better than that."

"I don't know if I--" Athelstan heard himself confess. 

"You can," Floki said, voice brooking no argument. "Follow with your hand." 

It was neither as self-evident nor as trying as Athelstan expected. He tried to mimic what Floki had done to him, tried to keep his teeth sheathed and out of the way, and judged by the way the shipwright hummed and sighed, that he was doing something right. (He wanted to despise the act and the man before him, but it was hard to do when for the first time since he'd landed on these foreign shores, he felt a strange sense of purpose.) There was no room for God or gods, no thought for Ragnar and his all-knowing eyes. Athelstan bobbed his head, finding a rhythm he could stay with for a while, and let his fingers trail down to cup Floki's sac. 

He should not have taken pleasure in the way Floki's hips jolted forward at such a small show of initiative. He did. God help him, he felt his own neglected cock twitch in echo.

"Enough," Floki said after a handful of minutes, his voice gone rough. "I would not spend before I claim you."

_That_ was a sobering thought. Athelstan released him with an obscene, wet pop, his eyes wide. "Claim?" He thought of Sodom and Gomorrah, of burning in hell, tormented for all eternity. But surely if he'd ventured this far, the fall was assured?

"Ragnar has been remiss in tending to your needs," Floki murmured. "Or is it that he thinks you indifferent to his?"

It was Athelstan's turn to feign ignorance. He didn't know how this stranger could possibly read the truth of him with a single glance. It unsettled to be left so bare, so exposed. Most of all, it hurt that he was unable to deny the thoughts that stole through his mind in the dead of night, when Ragnar mounted his wife and she clawed at the sheets with inhuman growls.

"Fetch the cooking oil," said Floki, smirking with half a mouth. 

Athelstan didn't move. "Will it hurt?" He couldn't say why he asked. After all he'd endured since the Northmen descended on the monastery, a little pain was nothing. Some of the warriors might have called it his lot. 

Not Floki. Floki only grinned one of his wide, half-mad grins and repeated: "Fetch the oil --and find out." 

It took him a moment to get his legs under him, but eventually, Athelstan stood. He started at the sudden tug of fingers in his shift. "Take this off while you're at it," said Floki. The command no longer frightened Athelstan. Nothing had changed; he was still a thrall and he was still alone at the shipwright's mercy. But Floki had already seen him naked when he'd emerged from the water. He had been able to control his baser urges then; no reason to think he wouldn't prove just as accommodating now, as he knelt by the fire, idly stroking at his cock. 

Wordlessly, Athelstan tugged his shift over his head and let it drop to the cold ground. He returned after a moment with the oil and a steady pounding in his chest. He submitted when Floki guided him back down to the floor, when he was pressed face-down into the furs. Fingers made rough with the carving of logs caressed almost tenderly at his shoulders, then over his spine, circling the knobs of his vertebrae until he reached the last one. 

Athelstan's hips pumped against the floor at the wet, warm swipe of a tongue against his tailbone. "Oh! What—"

Sooner than answer, Floki pinched his cheeks open with both hands, fingertips creeping down to stroke at his swollen sac. He said nothing as he caressed Athelstan to the point of madness. He offered no encouragement. And just when it seemed like he was going to keep up the torture until Athelstan shamed himself, he pressed his thumb against the puckered rosebud of his hole. 

It was a warm, blunt pressure. It stopped just short of painful. 

Every caress had so far fanned the flames Athelstan could feel licking at his veins, but this quenched the fire a little, reminded him of what was about to happen. There would be no coming back from this. Floki would know him for a catamite. How long before other warriors found out about Ragnar Lothbrok's soft slave? How long before Ragnar himself took his due?

Floki's fingers returned. This time, the touch was slick and warm, like the flick of a tongue against skin. Athelstan tried to despise it. He didn't want to be the kind of man who liked to be treated so. He didn't want to give Floki that power over him.

And yet he moaned as Floki's finger slid in to the second knuckle, helped by soothing strokes against his hip. "There," Floki said, and cackled like a bird of prey. Athelstan's grip had gone white-knuckled around the coarse white furs beneath him. He could hold no tighter as he was slowly, meticulously pried open. Floki crooked his digit on the upstroke once, twice, and on the third attempt, Athelstan's whole body jerked with a feral sound. 

Athelstan made to rise on his knees, but Floki grabbed his flailing legs and forced him back down to the ground. He was going to be taken like an animal. The thought rankled, but he couldn't seem to get find enough force to protest. Floki sunk another finger into his body, crooking and scissoring as though deaf to Athelstan's whimpers. 

_No_ , Athelstan thought, _he hears. He doesn't heed._

He thought of Lagertha as she rode her husband's cock to pleasure, how she was never patient or submissive in the act. He couldn't follow her example, so he laid there as Floki worked him open for long, torturous minutes, and tried to prepare himself for what was to come. Floki's fingers paused their torment eventually and he slid down to cover Athelstan's body with his own. 

He ached for this; he almost begged to be filled. He was too far gone to resist when Floki removed his hand and replaced it with his thick, warm cock. 

Athelstan couldn't see his wild, painted face, but he felt safe assuming that it was rigid with glee – perhaps even with a certain fascination. He was the happier for it. He could concentrate on his aches and pains, and the unsettling way in which none of it was half as agonizing as he'd feared. Floki licked the back of his neck, something an animal would do, and then bit down. 

It was enough to make Athelstan buck against his hold with a shallow cry. He felt the stiff length inside him press that much deeper. And then they were flush together, Floki's legs on either side of his and a hand stroking through his hair as the shipwright whispered strange, foreign words into his skin. 

It felt like being pulled apart from within. Floki's teeth couldn't hope to echo the sensation -- though in subsequent attempts, he came close. Athelstan rutted frantically against the furs, hoping for friction; it wasn't enough. If commanded, he would have stroked off to release without a second thought; no learned shame, no fear of judgment could hold back the choked pleas that spilled from his mouth. 

"More," he heard himself beg, surrendering. " _More_."

"Where is your god now?" Floki growled, moving without mercy, without respite. It was a sweet torture, in its own way, and it only grew worse when Athelstan was dragged up onto hands and knees. 

_Now_ he felt the full force of subjugation. Now he felt weak and used and elated despite it all. He tossed his head back when Floki slid a hand around his neck, let himself be pulled back into capable hands. His god was here, he thought drunkenly, because the white-hot rush of pleasure could be nothing short of rapture. 

Athelstan cried out when Floki took his cock in hand, body seizing so violently he felt his toes clench and his vision go blurry. His undoing came at the hands of a man whose sinister black eyes tracked his every movement. He arched against him, at once trying to get away and to prolong the unconscionable sense of lightness that flared in his veins. It did not occur to him to resist when Floki pressed slick fingers against his lips. Athelstan opened his mouth. He sucked them clean. 

He shuddered as he felt Floki empty inside him a minute or an hour later, all sense of time lost and his spent body shaking pitifully. Floki still stroked at his spent prick, despite soft, exhausted whimpers. He didn't stop Athelstan from spilling out of his arms. He hadn't needed to beat him to get his way; why bother forcing him now? 

Eventually, the rustle of clothing echoed in the silent, empty house. Athelstan kept his eyes closed and did nothing to acknowledge it. He could feel Floki's spunk seeping slowly out of him. He discovered he was still waiting to feel wronged or ill-used. 

Floki stroked a hand over his back. "The gods will be well pleased with you… I will come to you again, Athelstan." 

"Why?" he croaked. He was a slave, he reminded himself bitterly, and he could not refuse. (Worse, he could not say he wanted to and mean it.)

"You are of Ragnar's household. You must learn about prayer and worship, the better to protect his family."

_They are not mine to protect. I serve the Lord,_ Athelstan thought to say. Nothing came out, only a pitiful noise, halfway between pleasure and resignation, as fingers combed through his curls. 

"Ragnar must have the gods on his side," Floki went on. "He must thrive. You will help me in this, monk." Or else. Floki stood. "Fear not, you will enjoy my tutelage."

That was reason enough to be afraid. Athelstan could remember pilgrimages where he had carried the holy word to heathens in parts of the world untouched by light, yet this was the first time he felt like _he_ might be in danger of falling prey to foreign devils. 

"And if I refuse," Athelstan started to ask. No answer came. No threat. When he pushed himself up to his elbows and glanced about the room, it was only to discover himself alone. The ache inside of him and the words still ringing in his ear were all the proof he had that Floki had ever been present. 

He came to his knees then, tried to dredge from the deep well of memory the words to the _Pater Noster_. They would not come. All he could hear, like an echo at the bottom of a cave, was Floki's voice telling him he had spirit. Telling him that Ragnar chose well.


End file.
